A JOURNEY BACK five years to Euromoney’s 2002 foreign exchange poll (May 2002) shows that we identified a dominant theme of market consolidation then. We suggested that the market appeared set for domination by just five banks – much as today – and that consolidation was supposedly going to lead to a reduction in the number of trading venues, possibly to the extent that activity would become concentrated on just one. We wrote: "There’s no doubt that barriers to entry are rising in forex. To be a top-10 player in the market requires not only expertise and global presence but also good technology."
Five years on it’s apparent that our judgement was both true and false. Technology and a global presence do play a key role in maintaining a position in the top 10. But technology has also allowed the entry of new players to the...
